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Rescue Operations Underway After Indonesian Earthquake

by VOA News

   Rescue operations are underway Monday on Indonesia's Lombok island for
   hikers and guides who were stranded on Mount Rinjani following a
   powerful earthquake Sunday that caused landslides on the mountain.

   The Rinjani National Park chief says at least 500 people, many of them
   foreigners, remain "trapped" on the mountain which is the site of
   Indonesia's second highest volcano.

   The death toll from the earthquake has risen to 16, with 162 people
   injured.

   Thousands of homes were damaged, but the East Lombok district was
   particularly hard hit.Reports say more than a thousand homes in that
   area alone were mangled.

   The shallow, 7-kilometer-deep earthquake hit the popular tourist
   destination early Sunday, rousing people from their beds and sending
   them into the streets and open fields to avoid collapsing buildings.

   Officials say the region has experienced at lest 124 aftershocks, but
   no tsunami was triggered.

   Earthquakes are common in Indonesia because it sits on the Pacific Ring
   of Fire, an arc of volcanoes and fault lines around the Pacific Basin.